


bright as the stars that shine (is my love for you)

by elisela



Series: last kisses [4]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Fluff, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Truth or Dare, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24538984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: Chris dances in his seat next to Buck, looking for all the world like all his dreams have come true. “I can dare you anything!” he says, looking at Eddie, eyes bright. “And you have to do it!”day 4: on a dare
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: last kisses [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771387
Comments: 21
Kudos: 419





	bright as the stars that shine (is my love for you)

When the peppy blond teenager at the Rainforest Cafe hostess stand smiles at them and tells Eddie that the wait for a table is around 90 minutes, Eddie honestly thinks that his own meltdown might rival his son’s. It’s their last night in Vegas, an impromptu trip that happened after Chim and Hen had teased Buck for hours about never partaking in the Vegas scene in his pre-Abby days—teasing that had only gotten worse when Eddie had tried to shift some of the attention by admitting that he’d never been, either—and he and Buck had been putting off this particular nightmare of a restaurant since Christopher had laid eyes on it.

Or he had, at least, because somehow Buck and Christopher are discussing some type of dessert that has sparklers burning on top of it despite neither of them having been here before; a clear indication that Buck has spent time digging for information and has been slowly hyping his son in an effort to drive Eddie insane.

Eddie would find it cute, but he’s a little distracted by the pout on Christopher’s face as he takes in what the hostess is saying. 

“Is that like an hour?” he half asks, half whines.

“An hour and a half,” Buck answers because, bless him, while he loves Chris and does a great job with him most of the time, Eddie clearly hasn’t taught him the value of being strategically vague.

Eddie refrains from pinching the bridge of his nose at Christopher’s displeased noise and smiles at the hostess, gives her his name, and tries not to cry when she tells him that they’re so sorry, but their pager system is broken so they’ll have to keep checking in to see when their table is ready. Their hotel is too far to make walking there and back worth it, but there are plenty of stores around and Eddie can only hope that window-shopping will be enough to hold off his kid’s impending tantrum. 

They make it about 45 minutes, which is better than he could have hoped for, really, and Buck buys them an extra ten minutes by suggesting that Eddie should give _him_ a piggyback ride, which spurs Chris’ insistence that it’s really his right to be ferried around on his father’s back. 

When Buck winks at him, Eddie leans over and kisses him gratefully. 

Before long though, he tires of hearing the whining against his ear, and he blames that—along with his own hunger and fatigue dragging his body into exhaustion—for what he says next: “Hey Chris, want to play truth or dare?”

He almost laughs at the panicked look on Buck’s face; Chris has only just moved on from his _would you rather_ phase, and Buck had made it abundantly clear that he preferred that one over truth or dare, no matter how many nights they’d stayed awake trying to figure out ways to get a Chris to stop asking “would you rather—“ in every moment of silence. 

But Chris giggles and clutches his arms around Eddie’s neck a little tighter; Eddie’s not sure if he actually means the apologetic look he gives Buck, and by the smile tugging at the corner of Buck’s mouth, he knows it. 

“I’ll start,” Chris announces. “Dad, did you ever get in trouble at school?”

“You forgot the “truth or dare” part, Buddy,” Buck laughs. “Although maybe it’s just because you know your Dad never takes a dare.”

It’s true—Eddie knows his son well and is completely confident that continuously choosing the _truth_ option will not yield any questions he can’t or doesn’t feel like answering, and Buck respects his privacy enough to not ask anything personal when Chris is around. “Truth,” Eddie says, and before Chris can repeat his question he says, “I got into trouble a few times. Uh, once when I was in second grade I painted on the walls with my friend David because we thought that watercolors would wash off—” 

Chris laughs in his ear, a delighted sound; Eddie can feel his head shaking back and forth as they walk back towards the restaurant. He drops one of his arms from where he’s supporting Chris’ legs to his side and reaches out for Buck’s hand. He stills feels a sense of longing, sometimes, almost like he’s pining for Buck, despite having been with him for nearly two years now; there are times he forgets what he’s allowed, what he has. 

“—I had to write ‘I will not paint on the walls’ fifty times for that. And in high school, I got suspended for a day in eleventh grade because I left at lunch with my friends to get McDonald’s. We weren’t supposed to leave, but we heard the principal was gone for the day so we thought we wouldn’t get caught.”

“And you did?”

“We did,” he says.

“Were Grandma and Grandpa mad?”

“Yep,” he lies; his parents had never found out. His Dad worked late every night, and his Mom spent every afternoon and evening taking his sisters to choir, dance, and every other extra-curricular activity they engaged in. All Eddie had done was start speaking Spanish when he picked up the phone, lowered his voice a little, and said he would talk to his son. He spent his day out of school playing video games and eating junk food with two of his friends.

He squeezes Buck’s hand before letting go. “Truth or dare, Chris,” he says, knowing perfectly well that Chris will choose the dare. It’s hot in Vegas, the sun still shining down on them brightly despite being evening, and he fully intends to manipulate his child into causing a river of sweat to run down his boyfriend’s back instead of his own. Chris does not disappoint, and a moment later he’s shifted from Eddie to Buck, while Buck boasts that he’s just stronger than Eddie.

They continue playing as they meader slowly back towards the restaurant; Chris has a tendency to ask the same questions of both Buck and Eddie, so they tell him about their favorite birthday present (Chris doesn’t accept Eddie’s answer about any gift he has made over the years, so he tells him about the year Abuela bought him a brand new bike; Buck will not change his answer from the ceramic fire truck that Chris had painted for him no matter how hard Chris digs his fingers into Buck’s ticklish spots) how often they lied on their reading log when they were his age (he’s pretty sure they both make up the answer to that), and, just as Buck picks truth and Eddie leaves them in the little shop area to check in at the hostess stand—

“How did you know you loved Dad?”

He doesn’t stick around for the answer; instead, he watches them from the line he’s in, watches how Buck tilts his head up and back to look at Chris while he talks, watches both of their faces light up, and allows himself to feel overwhelmed with the way they both so obviously love _him_. 

Their table is ready by the time Eddie makes it to the front of the line, and as they’re seated, Chris sighs. “I’d say truth or dare but you never say dare,” he grumbles.

Eddie barely refrains from rolling his eyes, but—really, what could one dare hurt? He’s in a good mood now that they’ve got menus in their hand and are safely enclosed in an air-conditioned building, so he grins and says, “you know what, buddy? Okay. Dare.” Chris’ jaw drops; Eddie watches as Buck snorts, the water he’d just taken a sip of dribbling out of his mouth. “Attractive,” Eddie says, tossing a napkin across the table at him.

Chris dances in his seat next to Buck, looking for all the world like all his dreams have come true. “I can dare you anything!” he says, looking at Eddie, eyes bright. “And you have to do it!”

Eddie’s pretty sure he’d give Chris anything he wanted at that moment, up to and including the puppy he’s been begging for. He tries to hold the line on not being the parent that gives in just to keep the smile on their kids’ face, but when Chris looks at him with that much joy in his expression, there’s almost nothing Eddie won’t do.

“I dare you to marry Buck tonight.”

His heart skips a beat; he exchanges an amused look with Buck. They’ve been engaged for a few months; Buck had proposed one early morning in March, watching the sunrise over the San Fernando Valley from the top of Westridge Trail after racing each other up, throwing an arm over Eddie’s shoulder and quietly asking if he’d marry him. They hadn’t felt the need to rush into the wedding, though—Eddie had given Buck legal guardianship over Chris a few months before they started dating, he’d switched over all his beneficiaries to Chris after Shannon had died. Still—”that’s really something Buck and I should talk about together,” he says. 

Chris nods and twists his body, swinging his legs out of the booth. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he says, reaching for the crutches that Eddie had propped against his side of the table. “You can talk to Buck, and then after dinner, you can get married.”

“You know, the penalty for not fulfilling a dare is only a dollar,” Buck says after Chris is out of hearing range. “So we can just tell him that we’ll get married, but we need—I don’t know, a few months. Maybe by Christmas?”

Eddie nods slowly. “Or,” he says, meeting Buck’s gaze and reaching a hand out across the table, “we—could? Tonight?”

Buck looks at him for a moment longer, reaches over and rests his hand on top of Eddie’s. “We could,” he says. “You want to?”

“I do,” Eddie says, and smiles when Buck chuckles. “There’s no reason not to, right? You’d be okay with that?”

Buck pulls his hand away and presses it to his heart. “Edmundo Diaz, you old romantic,” he teases. “I can think of a _few_ reasons—reasons who won’t be very happy with us—but I would be happy to marry you tonight.” He puts his hand back on the table when Eddie reaches for him, squeezes his hand when Eddie curls his fingers around Buck’s palm. 

They’re still sitting like that when Chris comes back, and he seems to know just by looking at them that they’re going through with it, because as soon as their waitress arrives and asks how they are he announces, “my Dad and Buck are getting married after this!” with a beaming smile. 

It’s all Chris wants to talk about during dinner; he spends his time picking at his food while he and Buck google wedding chapels and dismiss them one by one— 

(“Talk about tacky,” Buck says, and Chris nods and agrees.

“Too much pink,” Chris says, wrinkling his nose up, and Buck narrows his eyes and closes the tab.)

—and two hours later, after they’ve managed to pick out rings at a jewelry store not far from the restaurant, and change into the nicest clothes they’d brought with them (slacks and button downs; not bad, but they’re working with limited options), they’re standing in the lobby of the chapel they deemed acceptable.

They’re holding hands at the door to the garden room, Chris standing in front of Buck and leaning tiredly back on him, when Eddie turns and uses his free hand to turn Buck’s face towards his. He keeps his hand on Buck’s cheek when he leans in and kisses him, moving their lips together slowly, gently.

Buck hums into the kiss, pulls away slightly to murmur against his lips, “last kiss as a single man, Diaz, you better enjoy it.”

“Last kiss as a Buckley,” he whispers back, and Buck’s mouth presses against his more urgently. 

Eddie doesn’t register much about the ceremony, too caught up in the idea that Buck is his, that he’s never felt this sure of anything despite the way he stumbles his way through the vows he tried to compose himself over dinner. He hardly feels how Buck’s hands shake as he promises to love him, to trust him and to always have his back, barely hears Chris giggles between them as they gaze at each other, smiling widely.

When Buck finishes his vows, he squeezes Eddie’s hands once before letting go and turning towards Chris, dropping to one knee. “Your happiness is my happiness, buddy,” he says quietly, and Eddie’s chest burns with how much love Buck holds in his heart for Chris. “I’m here for you every day, no matter what you need. You’ll always be my favorite Diaz.”

“And now you’re my favorite Diaz,” Chris responds, pressing a kiss to Buck’s cheek and smiling. He wraps his arms around Buck and maybe Eddie should wait, maybe he should let them have this moment, but he can’t help but kneel and wrap his arms around both of them, holding them together, pulling them close. 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ [hearteyesforbuck](http://hearteyesforbuck.tumblr.com).


End file.
